Talk:Edsby

Promotional content removed
I have removed large chunks of unencyclopedic self-promotional content:
 * Competitor activities are largely irrelevant and off-topic (unless they have been covered in independent sources with a direct context to this topic).
 * Fawning out-of-context opinions in PR "reviews" are unencyclopedic and undue weight. Review information should focus on substantial verifiable facts from experts.
 * "Awards" should focus on significant "awards" (aka: 1st place) from independent acknowledged publications and organizations. Finalist mentions, most "top X" listings, branche-internal sponsored events, "customer choice" polls and other PR fluff are not awards. Also, awards should be listed in chronological ascending order (COI-editors are welcome to suggest such notable awards for inclusion here on the talkpage). GermanJoe (talk) 12:49, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Request edit on 5 November 2018
Independent editor invited to review suggested changes, too many to identify individually, to this article written by a company representative. Staged on userspace page at User:EcoFuror/sandbox/Edsby and pasted here for convenience:

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Edsby is a cloud-based software application that combines social networking with class and student management features. It is a learning management system for K-12 students, educators and parents.

Edsby, originally named CoreFour, was founded in April 2010 by the three original founders and architects of the FirstClass software application, cited as the first modern learning management system along with a longtime co-worker. It offers K-12 school districts various online social learning tools connected to their existing legacy systems, including gradebooks, attendance-taking, parent-teacher communication features, classroom management, content management and social classroom interaction.

In 2016, the product introduced data aggregation and analytics features. In 2018, it introduced ways for educators to capture and report multimedia evidence of learning.

Business model
Edsby is sold only to K-12 school districts and not available as a free version. It sells its system directly to school districts and private schools and charges a per-user conventional software as a service fee annually. Edsby synchronizes bi-directionally with school districts' legacy student information systems and other systems and creates and manages classes, students, teachers and schedules by leveraging districts' existing databases, speeding deployment and district-wide adoption.

Edsby has partnered with Microsoft and makes its service available on the Microsoft Azure cloud service worldwide. Microsoft has enhanced its OneNote application to support easy entry of grades into the Edsby gradebook.

Edsby is privately held. The company has acknowledged one funding round of around two million US dollars.

Customers
One significant Edsby site is the school district of Hillsborough County Public Schools. Edsby is deployed to all of the 215,000 students and 15,000 teachers at 260 schools in the district. Edsby replaced a more expensive system, Edline, in September 2013 for grade books and parent engagement. Educator reaction has been positive, with some end-user grousing. Another large single customer is the 122,000-student York Region District School Board, where Edsby is used district-wide for parent communication and student assessment and reporting.

District-wide deployments with other school systems include 34,000 students and 3,450 staff at Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board. The Greater Essex County District School Board has also adopted Edsby for its 35,000 students and their parents.

Awards

 * 2017 SIIA CODiE Award, Best Education Data Solution
 * 2016 District Administration Top 100 product
 * 2016 THE Journal Reader's Choice awards: Most Valuable In Your Schools & Top 10 Favorite Technologies Currently Used
 * 2016 Tech & Learning Award of Excellence
 * 2016 SIIA CODiE Award, Best Classroom Management Solution
 * 2015 District Administration Readers’ Choice Top Products
 * 2015 EdTech Digest top LMS of 2015 "Cool Tool" Award
 * 2014-2015 eSchool News Readers’ Choice Award
 * 2014 District Administration's Readers’ Choice Top 100 Products

EcoFuror (talk) 03:29, 8 November 2018 (UTC)


 * It is stated that but it's not clear from that statement whether you're speaking in the third person about the "company representative", meaning are they a different person, or is that person you. Please clarify. Also, if you could indicate whether you're paid for your contributions or not. Thank you!    Spintendo   16:20, 8 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Sorry, above ambiguity wasn't intentional. Have just added a connected contributor (paid) slug to the top of this talk page. I'm a current employee of the company as of this writing and the one that authored the suggested changes above. Will expand disclosure on my user page beyond existing UserboxCOI as well. EcoFuror (talk) 18:39, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Reply 08-NOV-2018
Regards,  Spintendo   17:06, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The requested changes do not offer an improvement over the standing version. Individual issues are:
 * 1) The text placed in the draft is placed as rough cuts, without smoothing of the flow of prose, creating run-on sentences ; text which uses an odd combination of phrases ;  or which uses words that seem out of place.
 * 2) The references are largely re-mentions of company press releases, meaning the impetus for these publication's coverage originates from the company. As such, it appears that only their voice is being heard here.


 * Unless you or others advise otherwise, I'll re-submit specific edit requests individually and make a case with each as to why they improve the article rather than rolling up a bunch of edits as above. EcoFuror (talk) 18:39, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Request edit on 9 November 2018
Inviting a non-conflicted editor to consider replacing this:

One significant Edsby site is the school district of Hillsborough County Public Schools. Edsby is deployed to all of the 194,000 students and 15,000 teachers at 260 schools in the district. Edsby replaced a more expensive system, Edline, in September 2013 for grade books and parent engagement. The company claims to serve approximately 20 million requests every day. District educator reaction has been positive, with some end-user grousing.

District-wide deployments with other school systems include 34,000 students and 3,450 staff at Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board and 60,000 public school students at Halton District School Board. The Greater Essex County District School Board has adopted Edsby for its 35,000 students and their parents, as has the District School Board of Niagara for its 36,000 students and their parents.

With this:

One significant Edsby site is the school district of Hillsborough County Public Schools. Edsby is deployed to all of the 215,000 students and 15,000 teachers at 260 schools in the district. Edsby replaced a more expensive system, Edline, in September 2013 for grade books and parent engagement. Educator reaction has been positive, with some end-user grousing. Another large single customer is the 122,000-student York Region District School Board, where Edsby is used district-wide for parent communication and student assessment and reporting.

District-wide deployments with other school systems include 34,000 students and 3,450 staff at Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board. The Greater Essex County District School Board has also adopted Edsby for its 35,000 students and their parents.

Rationale: EcoFuror (talk) 17:40, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Updates # of students at Hillsborough County Public Schools to latest figure
 * Removes "the company claims to serve approximately 20 million requests every day" as unnecessary detail/puffery
 * Replaces Hillsborough County Public Schools customer win press release with a trade publication citation illustrating Edsby deployment at Hillsborough
 * Adds new large customer York Region District School Board
 * Removes Halton District School Board and District School Board of Niagara customers, as neither ever deployed Edsby wider than initial pilot projects, despite both school districts awarding RFP wins to Edsby and announcing deployments
 * Updates Greater Essex County District School Board customer win citation to independent magazine article illustrating Edsby deployment

Reply 12-NOV-2018
Regards,  Spintendo   08:16, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) Although the request asks for information to be replaced, the request does not state verbatim which information is to be removed.
 * 2) The description of the software as "saving money" for the districts who use it, is to advertise its cost saving potential. Information worded in this manner is generally not acceptable for Wikipedia.

Response, further action requested:
 * 1) Clarification, please, of how to more effectively state verbatim which information is to be removed? In the rationale section of my edit request above, I wrote "Removes 'the company claims to serve approximately 20 million requests every day' as unnecessary detail/puffery" and "Removes Halton District School Board and District School Board of Niagara customers, as neither ever deployed Edsby wider than initial pilot projects, despite both school districts awarding RFP wins to Edsby and announcing deployments." Each removal request and addition was documented in the rationale section with explanation. Is there another syntax I should be following? If so, would welcome example(s) of how to do this more effectively.
 * 2) My edit requests do not relate to this text from the existing live article. It appears in both versions of my edit request above. I invite you to evaluate it independent of my other edits... but consider first clicking through to the citation, which seems to put emphasis, in the second body graph, that cost savings are why this particular customer selected the software. So it seems a statement of fact as written, and not a general marketing claim.

I'd like to request you or another editor reconsider applying my edit request above based on the additional clarification provided. Should I assume you, Spintendo, personally will revisit this request if having seen these comments, or do I need to re-submit them as another fresh correction request or follow some other protocol? I'm new to this back-and-forth and am unclear how to proceed. EcoFuror (talk) 19:03, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Request edit on 12 November 2018
Non-conflicted editors, please consider adding the following section at the bottom of the Edsby page. This is a reworked list of company awards consistent with the guidelines from another editor above on this talk page, who removed a previous, less vigorous awards section from this page a year ago. Each of these publications are respected edtech industry trades. Those that don't have a Wikipedia page linked (e.g. EdTech Digest, eSchool News) are indeed still legitimate publications and can be found cited in dozens of references from other companies on other Wikipedia pages. The company indeed won all of these awards, and wasn't just a finalist.

===Awards=== EcoFuror (talk) — Preceding unsigned comment added by EcoFuror (talk • contribs) 01:04, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * 2018 EdTech Digest EdTech "Cool Tool" Award - Parent/Student Solution
 * 2017 SIIA CODiE Award, Best Education Data Solution
 * 2016 District Administration Top 100 product
 * 2016 THE Journal Reader's Choice awards: Most Valuable In Your Schools & Top 10 Favorite Technologies Currently Used
 * 2016 Tech & Learning Award of Excellence
 * 2016 SIIA CODiE Award, Best Classroom Management Solution
 * 2015 District Administration Readers’ Choice Top Products
 * 2015 EdTech Digest EdTech "Cool Tool" Award - Top Learning Management System
 * 2014-2015 eSchool News Readers’ Choice Award
 * 2014 District Administration's Readers’ Choice Top 100 Products

Reply 12-NOV-2018
Regards,  Spintendo   08:16, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) ❌ Eight of these awards are not independently notable in Wikipedia. Several of these awards do not contain Wikilinks, and some that do are deceptively linked to the items highlighted (i.e., "District Administration").
 * 2) ✅ The only awards which are approvable as they have mentions in Wikipedia are the CODiE awards, which were added to the article.

Response, no further action requested:
 * Appreciate the addition of at least a few from this list. But for the record, the awards denied from this list do appear in Wikipedia as legitimate awards on many other companies' pages. And, I don't believe the term deceptive above was a fair characterization of including links to publications' Wikilinks, where they existed, in the names of the awards as a convenience to the reader. The published list of each award's winners on each publication's website were cited for every line item. EcoFuror (talk) 19:03, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Request edit on 16 November 2018
Requesting removal of these two passages from the live version of this article:

and 60,000 public school students at Halton District School Board.

and

, as has the District School Board of Niagara for its 36,000 students and their parents.

In the years since these edits were made, neither district deployed the Edsby software wider than initial pilot projects, despite both districts awarding RFP wins to Edsby and announcing deployments as cited in the original references. Neither school district should be identified as a current Edsby customer at this time. EcoFuror (talk) 18:51, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Reply 16-NOV-2018
 Spintendo   20:40, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
 * These claims have been moved to the Past users section.

Thanks, but the edit is inaccurate. Neither district deployed the Edsby software to its general user base after initial trials. So to characterize both districts and their 96,000 collective users as past users is incorrect. Suggest removing that newly-created section. EcoFuror (talk) 23:37, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Request edit on 21 November 2018
Request deletion in entirety of this recently created section:

Past users
Past users of the software include 60,000 public school students at Halton District School Board and the District School Board of Niagara's 36,000 students and their parents.

While both districts cited here announced selection of the Edsby software, neither ultimately deployed it to their general user base after initial trials. So to characterize both districts and their 96,000 collective users as past users is incorrect. Both districts, if they saw this characterized as is, would push back on this as misrepresentation. EcoFuror (talk) 19:08, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Reply 21-NOV-2018
 Spintendo   19:55, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Those claims were initially added by the COI editor in July 2015. I believe that this request for removal now received by the exact same COI editor demonstrates the pratfalls in allowing recentism to guide article editing choices.

Request edit on 1 August 2019
Requesting a non-conflicted editor undo recent edit to this page, revision 909319543 by ACS005 (talk) - vandalism?

Request edit on 9 August 2019
Requesting a non-conflicted editor consider replacing ===Customers=== section with the below. Cuts superfluous Hillsborough site detail, removes vendor user growth claims and adds New Zealand MoE. EcoFuror (talk) 20:39, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

One significant Edsby site is the school district of Hillsborough County Public Schools. Edsby deployed to all 194,000 students and 15,000 teachers at the district's 260 schools in September, 2013. Other district-wide deployments include 125,000 students, their parents and staff at York Region District School Board in 2017, 35,000 students and staff at Greater Essex County District School Board in 2016 and the 34,000 students and 3,450 staff at Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board in 2015. In March, 2019, the New Zealand Ministry of Education began prototyping a national data exchange for country-wide electronic student records sharing using Edsby. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EcoFuror (talk • contribs) 20:39, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Reply 9-AUG-2019
Regards, Spintendo  00:52, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * 1) The information regarding Hillsborough is already included.
 * 2) The deployments at York, Essex, and Kawartha are not dated.
 * 3) The claims regarding the national data exchange do not adequately describe that the program is undergoing "early stage roll outs" which are intended to "design, develop and test the potential for a national learner repository". As the sentence reads now it implies that the system is completed and functioning "country-wide". Please clarify.
 * 4) When ready to proceed with the requested information, kindly change the  template's answer parameter to read from yes to no. Thank you!

Replies in order:
 * 1) The Hillsborough edit proposes dropping other Hillsborough-related points in the interest of brevity given other customers worth identifying. The edit also cites a Tampa Bay Tribune article for the deployment instead of the company press release there today. Drops "replaced a more expensive system" as partisan, drops the serving "approximately 20 million requests every day" and the "announced it had added half a million more paid users" vendor claims as non-verifiable. And drops Hillsborough "district educator reaction has been positive, with some end-user grousing", as user reaction at rollout time is less material now in the 6 years since the software's introduction.
 * 2) Added dates in the above.
 * 3) Rewrote the sentence to characterize as prototyping at this time until the Ministry acknowledges anything further publicly.
 * 4) Done.

Thanks. EcoFuror (talk) 22:33, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Reply 12-AUG-2019
Regards, Spintendo  02:06, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
 * 1) ✅ The information regarding Hillsborough was updated.
 * 2) ✅ The deployments at York, Essex, and Kawartha were added.
 * 3) ✅ The claims regarding the national data exchange have been rephrased according to the sources provided and were added to the article.
 * The COI editor is reminded not to forget the adding of author information when filling out citation templates (for future requests). Thank you!

Request edit on 13 August 2019
Requesting a non-conflicted editor consider replacing the first sentence of the history section of this article:

Edsby, originally named CoreFour, was founded in April 2010 by the three original founders and architects of the FirstClass software application, along with a longtime co-worker.

With the below:

Edsby, originally named CoreFour, was founded in April 2010 by Steve Asbury, Jon Asbury, and Scott Welch, the three original founders and architects of the early learning management system software application FirstClass, and longtime co-worker John Myers.

For the following reasons:
 * 1) Inserts specific names of company founders in attempt to satisfy the who template recent added
 * 2) Adds the context that Edsby progenitor FirstClass was a pioneering learning management system, relevant because Edsby is in the same category. Supported by the original citation above and another citation added; the historical role of FirstClass is acknowledged in learning management system as "FirstClass by SoftArc, used by the United Kingdom's Open University in the 1990s and 2000s to deliver online learning across Europe, was one of the earliest internet-based LMSs."
 * 3) Corrects syntax of author name and updates publication name of original Ashok Sharma citation
 * 4) Replaces Backbone magazine citation dead link with a contemporary news article that documents company history

EcoFuror (talk) 18:30, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Reply 13-AUG-2019
Spintendo 19:37, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Request edit on 19 September 2019
Requesting a non-conflicted editor remove the Advert template from this article. EcoFuror (talk) 17:19, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Significant promotional content has been removed by independent editors in the year since template added
 * Links are now all to third party sources; no citations remain to company's web site or press releases
 * NPOV applied by independent editors

Reply 19-SEP-2019

 * It is recommended that, as a courtesy, you first try asking the editor who assigned the template — in this case — in order to find out from them if it can be removed. Since they placed the template, they are in the best position to know whether or not the issues which caused its placement have been corrected. You may contact them directly by placing a new message on their talk page.
 * In the unlikely event that you do not hear back from them after a reasonable amount of time, please reopen this request by altering the template's answer parameter to read from yes to no. Thank you! Regards,  Spintendo  19:28, 19 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Looking at the article history, a COI template applies: This article was created against a COI, and EcoFuror has contributed over 80% of the content, and 30% of all edits. --Ronz (talk) 19:44, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Skimming the references, it appears the sources are overwhelmingly driven by Edsby's public relations. --Ronz (talk) 19:47, 19 September 2019 (UTC)